Hows the Cricut stuff going? I saw them heavily discounted recently and was tempted, but the cartridges were outrageously expensive. I didn't realise you could do you own designs. Sounds like an excellent solution to problems I have just come up with!
cornixt
Sorry cornixt, missed your post from ages ago!
Cricut has been hit and miss really. I picked up some deep cutting blades, which are supposed to be the ones to use on sheets of thin plastic. I've played around a little with trying to cut some simple shapes but have been having trouble getting them to come out right. You can play around with speed as well as cutting pressure, which I've done, but no matter what I try even cutting a circle results in something like an oval with these plastic materials. The oval is sort of on a 45-degree angle, which suggests that the plastic is slipping on the mat as it's moving under the blade.
My wife and I took the kids to a petting zoo and corn maze in the Fall this year and just by chance one of the nearby halls where we went for a bathroom break was hosting an all-weekend scrap booking workshop. It was like nerd heaven. These ladies had brought tables, hobby caddies (the huge ones that are on wheels), and several of them even had their computers with them hooked up to their own Cricut for doing on-the-go cutting. Man, there was a weekend like that for Warhammer hobby stuff I'd be as giddy as a school girl. Anyway, I just went and asked one of the women about her experience (she had two computers, 3 different Cricuts and more hobby stuff with her than we have in our whole house!) She said for sure she's been able to cut the kind of plastic I'm trying to cut and hasn't had problems. Her recommendation was to buy some spray-on adhesive and use that to stick the plastic down to the cutting mat to reduce slippage, and to also use bulldog cips on the corners, but to make sure they're not going to jam the machine. ... with so much other hobby stuff I just haven't gotten back around to this yet :P
I’d heard of these things from some hobby magazine that dealt with model trains (while I chose wargaming minis, my brother chose trains) but I immediately assessed it as something that would be an expensive fad with me. I still thought it showed potential for someone who was willing to work at it. And you’ve shown how well it can work. I didn’t even know how small and intricate you could get the details. That’s fantastic!
Looks like Cricut is out of the picture now - they shut down the people that allowed you to do your own cuts and updated their software to prevent it, making it hard to find a working version. Still, a few more open cutters are out there.
Looks like Cricut is out of the picture now - they shut down the people that allowed you to do your own cuts and updated their software to prevent it,
cornixt
Did you see some news somewhere about this? Their software did/does allow you to use any of the shapes you've paid for with your cartridges, and from those shapes you have to figure out how to make the new shape you want through a combination of overlapping, inverting, rotating or distorting the existing designs. If there was some other way of making more custom shapes I *really* want to find that software. Someone must still have it or now how to make the older version of the software do it!
It was called Sure Cuts A Lot. They were sued and forced to withdraw their software. You could import vector graphics files into it so you could make any shape at all without buying any more cartridges. Only version 1 and 2 are compatible with Cricut, only version 3 is easily available. And you need a specific version of firmware on the Cricut machine.
Just found another program called Make The Cut which has also stopped supporting Cricut, so if you can get hold of an older version of that, it would also work.
If I ever go this route, it looks like Silhouette is a much more open system.
@Nicodemus Are you happy with it your Cricut? Would you recommend it?
I’m in the market for a desktop vinyl cutter. Read you comment and wanted to see if you can help me.
The problem with doing research on the internet is that it’s filled with garbage hype. That’s why I would like to hear from somebody who actually owns one.
What I’ve pieced together so far is that cricut has a horrible customer support. Is this true? What about the software is it still online no changes.
I was lucky when I’ve found a blog post that said it as it is. Actually it’s harsher than you would imagine. My short list included cameo and cricut. This post comparing cricut maker with cameo 3 was an eye opener.
Good news I got a real review bad news it has put me on the fence. What’s your take on it? Any ideas will be helpful
Nicodemus might not visit for a while, and everything in this thread is about older Cricut machines, not the current ones, but he might have one of those I don’t know.
I looked into getting a newer Cricut recently. Had to wade through tons of paid reviews (many of which seemed to be reading from the same scripted list of features) to find they still aren’t for me. Online-only software killed it dead for me, I don’t want to have to rely entirely on one company still being willing/able to support their older machines. But now it looks like I will have my hands full with a 3D printer, so cutting machines are completely off my shopping list for now.